Even if you have only a handful of paying customers on board, those people are your best source of information about how to get more customers to sign up for your app. Because they’re willing to hand over money, they’ve committed to your success on a certain level — those customers want you to continue offering your application so they can continue using it. Of course, just how deep their commitment goes depends on how important they consider what you’ve built. An application that keeps their business running from day to day is going to mean more to a user than a casual game. But, in either case, there’s enough of a connection to ask some questions.

A Crash Course in Survey Development

Writing a survey isn’t as easy as it seems — at least, it isn’t if you need really reliable data. The big problem most people face is that it’s very easy to write questions that are ambiguous. You need to make sure that your questions are as clear as possible so that you get exactly the data you need and that they actually ask for the right information. You need to:

• Write out the information you’re hoping to gather: Don’t start with the questions themselves, but rather the details you need.
• Write questions that you expect would get you the information that you want: You don’t need to ask about anything other than what you really need to know. Keep it to a minimum of questions or people will be less likely to complete the survey.
• Test your questions on real people, even if they aren’t your survey audience: Without having real people try to answer your questions, you’re not going to be able to tell if they make sense.
• Tweak your questions to make more sense: Getting the right questions can require some back-and-forth of tweaking and testing. Consider surveying to be a TDD environment.

You Don’t Need to Reinvent the Wheel

While it’s always tempting to build a whole new function from scratch and make it so much better than all those commercial options out there, surveying is one of those fields that it’s just not worth it for. There are great surveying tools out there, from Google Forms to SurveyMonkey. Go with whatever tool will let you get your survey up and running the fastest — you should be spending your time crafting great questions.

Don’t Have Customers Yet? You Can Still Survey

If you don’t already have customers in place, it will be harder to get information through a survey. There’s just not an incentive for your survey subjects to help you. You can add incentives, like a giveaway, to drive survey responses. However, you’re going to need a much higher rate of response — such situations often result in a lot of junk responses that just won’t be helpful. If you need information from prospective customers, a survey may be the best option, even if it’s not easy to collect the data.

Image by Flickr user Josh Davis

Does your little home office make you feel like a small fish? Here's what the big fish think of you.

Stress comes from all angles for the entrepreneur.

One would think that working from the comfort of home would decrease stress. That's not necessarily so.

While many small-business owners value the freedom and lower cost of a home-based office, they also worry about being "found out"--so much so that it keeps them from marketing to the corporate sector, where there are billions of dollars just waiting to be allocated to outsourcing.

"It's just not professional enough, and they wouldn't take me seriously if they knew," one of my clients told me.

She isn't alone in her concern that big clients seem to want to work with other big fish. Does working from home necessarily mean that you can't compete?

Consider this: Econohomes grossed more than $50 million in revenue last year, and was named the second-fastest growing company in Austin, Texas. That growth was in no small part due to the extent to which Econohomes works with home-based business-owners.

"Ninety percent of our business relies on database that is designed and maintained by an entrepreneur who works out of his basement in San Francisco," says Amy Hasbrouck, Econohomes's vice president of marketing & development. "And all of his team members work from home as well."

That's quite a large responsibility to be outsourced, but Hasbrouck sees distinct benefits in working with home-based contractors.

"I feel like there's a lot more flexibility with independent contractors," Hasbrouck says. "They can plug in and pivot quickly because they are not a part of something that is overly structured and complicated."

Working from home also allows for a more flexible work schedule. But does the fact that you work in the wee-hours, after the kids are in bed influence a hiring manager's choice? You may be tempted to bend the truth to keep your secret safe, but that may backfire on you.

"What is most important to us is that the contractors are up front about how and when they work," says human resources manager August Nielsen. "Recently we were implementing a new HR software and our project manager worked from home. We received emails at really odd times, but we knew his work schedule going in so it didn't surprise or concern us."

Nielsen is responsible for hiring more than 1,000 employees for Veterans United Home Loans, a company named the No. 1 financial-services job creator right here at Inc. "Our company has 1,200 employees in 25 offices in 22 states, operating in all time zones," says Neilsen. "We have to be just as flexible with vendors and contractors to make sure we are working with the best."

Still, there is the inevitable occasional reminder of a contractor's home-office status.

Do the sounds of home create an unprofessional impression for your clients? What if the dog barks or your three-year-old barges into the room during a client call? You may be mortified--but perhaps your concern is unfounded.

"A prospective vendor just did a demo with us from his home-based office," says Nielsen. "During the demo we heard the laundry buzzer go off. Frankly, it was endearing and we have a pretty casual work environment so not a big deal."

But Nielsen warns that some companies might have been turned off by the brief disruption. "Bottom line, working from home isn't going to work for every contractor and the buzzer in the background isn't always appropriate," he says. "But if you know your audience, set expectations, and deliver results it can work."

Hasbrouck is also very forgiving of a little noise in the background. "Are you kidding?" she chides. "I have a room full of sales people who toss around a football right outside my door. A little noise makes me feel right at home."

Do you fret about being "found out" by your larger clients and prospects? Remember this: the fact that you work from home does not necessarily make you appear unprofessional. But the fact that you believe it does certainly could keep you from swimming with the big fish.

Considering a career change to follow your dream and do great things? Five things to do before you take the plunge.

We do a lot of talking these days about becoming an entrepreneur, following your passion, and doing great things. Well, that's easier said than done. There are practical aspects of that equation that can be enormously challenging to overcome.

For one thing, most of us are gainfully employed. It isn't easy to just pick up and leave a career we've invested in, whether it's the right move or not. Then there's the risk factor. We have responsibilities, a mortgage to pay, kids to raise and put through college. It's hard to risk a sure thing for an unknown, especially later in life.

Nevertheless, there's a lot to be said for following your dream. You may not get rich, but you will enrich your life. And at least one school of thought says that you'll be more successful doing what you love doing than anything else. I couldn't agree more.

I took a hard left turn 23 years into my career and, although it's been quite a challenge, it's also been incredibly satisfying and invigorating. There's nothing like jumping headfirst off a high cliff to get the adrenaline flowing and make you feel young again. But before you jump, do these five things; they will help you make the right call.

Take a long, hard look in the mirror.

What do you see? If it's someone who took the path of least resistance early in life and has been locked on to that trajectory ever since, who would suffer deep regrets if she didn't at least try to find her true path, that's some pretty good motivation, right there.

If, on the other hand, you see someone with a romantic notion of doing his own thing instead of working for the Man, that's probably not going to work out so well. You've really got to figure out what your motivation is. What are your objectives, your priorities? What are you trying to prove and to whom?

Understanding what your true motives and goals are will help you and your family--an important part of the equation, by the way--to assess the risk and make the right decision. It'll also help you avoid waking up down the road and realizing you made a change for all the wrong reasons, like "the grass is always greener."

Don't try to be what you're not.

You're not really trying to change as much as you're trying to find the real you, the path you were meant for. I know that sounds amorphous, but that's just the way it is. You'll know it when you find it. If you're not sure, then keep looking.

I started out as an engineer, but that really wasn't for me. So I got into sales, then marketing. Lo and behold, that was the real me. Everything got easy. And I climbed the corporate ladder like a monkey.

You see, people can change under very specific conditions, but if changing your DNA, so to speak, is a prerequisite for your career shift, I wouldn't do it unless you've got a considerable financial safety net.

Look for problems, not solutions.

Most entrepreneurs are people looking to do something new and different; they search for ideas, for solutions. That's usually the wrong place to start. What you need to find first is a problem that you feel passionate about solving. With any luck, it's one that you're uniquely qualified to solve.

One of the most important questions venture capitalists ask when evaluating an enterprise is: Does it solve a big problem? Does it eliminate a customer pain point? Does it help customers either do something they really want to do but never could, or do something far better, easier, or less expensively than ever before?

Another way to think of it: Don't try to do something great. Not initially. Just try to find a problem you think needs to be solved and do that. Mark Zuckerberg wasn't trying to create a company or do something big when he started Facebook. He just thought it would be cool to be able to rate women's looks online. That was it.

Go where the money is.

I don't care what anyone says: tossing out years of experience in one career to jump to a new one, perhaps even an entrepreneurial endeavor, is extremely risky. Best case, you will take a financial hit. And you have to be prepared for various not-so-best-case scenarios, as well, especially if you've got a family to support.

I'm not saying don't do it, but consider this. Giving up a solid paycheck to start something new on a shoestring budget in a commodity business where you might end up slugging it out with entrenched competitors for single-digit profit margins is for the birds.

Of course, money shouldn't be your primary motivation, but you shouldn't throw caution to the wind, either. Look at fields and industries that have more than a snowball's chance in hell of you making it and making ends meet. Go for growth markets in which venture capital firms are investing, for example.

Find a great team.

There is tremendous power in groups--at least the right groups. The same goes for complementary partnerships. Find a wingman, or be somebody else's wingman. Find a great team to be a part of or create one. Most successful start-ups have more than one founder. Bill Gates had Paul Allen. Google's Larry Page had Sergey Brin. It's true in any field. It took four extraordinary people who seemed anything but extraordinary at the time to make the Beatles.

Warren Bennis co-wrote an amazing book about great groups called Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration. Check it out. Even if your group isn't magical, at least you will have others to share the work and the misery with. Remember: When you're doing something new or making a change, support is key. No kidding.

A non-profit aims to help start-ups explore European markets with a new six-week mentorship and exchange program.

With well over 700 million inhabitants, Europe offers start-ups rich pickings for potential customers--but also plenty of headaches.

"Start-ups want to come to Europe," Ines Santos Silva, co-founder of Startup Exchange Programme explained to Inc. in an interview. "But it is very difficult for companies outside Europe or even in Europe to move to another country—we are very different in terms of language, in terms of culture, in terms of the way we do business. We wanted to facilitate that process."

The result of that impulse is Startup Exchange, a non-profit exchange program that plans to bring start-ups to nine European incubators for six weeks this spring. Last year, the organization did a test run with two European start-ups. "Since it worked very well, we wanted to expand," said Santos Silva.

Miguel Andrade, CEO of VitaSensis, which went to Finland with the program last year, agreed: "Moving (business wise) in Europe is not as easy as in the U.S. We were going to Finland anyway, so finding a program that provides insights and transmits knowledge for a market we planned to go anyway was a perfect match for us."

This year's edition of the program is now accepting applications for the nine slots in cities including Lisbon, Milan, Berlin, and Vienna.

"Basically we provide a soft landing for these companies to come to Europe to one of these hubs for six weeks, to go to another market and start making connections there," explained Santos Silva. Participants will also receive online mentoring from a team of eight start-up veterans including Podio co-founder Kasper Hulthin, Mozilla director Pascal Finette and Luis Franco, VP of international operations at SurveyMonkey.

Start-ups are on their own when it comes to funding their stay (and those who are accepted will need to pay a modest 150 euro administrative fee) but when it comes to sorting out visas, finding a place to live abroad and settling in, "the different incubators working with us will help with their networks. It's going to be very informal," said Santos Silva.

Start-ups for Mexico to Malaysia has already applied and Santos Silva stresses the program is open to companies from anywhere, but she suggests that the experience would be most beneficial to "high-growth start-ups that already have traction in their own market and maybe want to go abroad."

"We are looking for companies mainly focused on physical products because for these start-ups it's more interesting to go to another market and start making connections there, find suppliers, potential partners, potentials clients, but we also take web-based companies that want to go to another country and develop some kind of relationship with the local community," she said.

Applicants are asked where they'd like to go and a final match is made based on input from the local incubators and sector fit. "If you are a fashion start-up it makes perfect sense to go to Milan. If you are a tech start-up, it makes a lot of sense to come to Berlin. So it's based on what the company's doing," said Santos Silva.

Interested? Applications are being accepted until March 9th.

Have you ever used a coding style guide when working with a team? If you haven’t, it’s about time I introduce you to the concept. All well-disciplined teams, regardless of their specialty, have a number of ground rules that keeps them uniform. Every major newspaper and magazine has a style guide. If you’re going to start building a team, you might as well create one before people start getting used to coding all over the place.

A mentor of mine once told me: “Getting a team of developers to cooperate is just like herding a bunch of stray cats.” Coders all have their own personal ways to construct routines and modules. Each of them has a preferred framework, a preferred IDE, and a preferred flavor of doughnut to chew on while working. It’s what makes a coder who he/she is. But you can’t just let ‘em all roam freely. You and anyone you work with have to make some compromises to put a sort of leash around your nasty coding habits.

I’ll give you my bad habits. I coded in C, and I didn’t tab anything. I just swam through, wrote enormous headers with defined routines I would later find myself not using at all, and rarely commented. It was my style, and it worked. The moment someone looked at my code to add something, he said, “Why’d you even bother making this open-source? No one can read half of it!” This isn’t the way to code when you’re collaborating with someone. That’s why you should make a style guide for your team.

Here are a few things you should include in your style guide:

• Comments – Let them know where, when, and how much to comment. Neatly commented work will be easier to navigate.
• Tabbing – Definitely make them tab their code. Every new subroutine (while, if, select, for, etc.) should have its content tabbed even further. Recursive tabbing saves tons of time and makes your team more productive.
• Variable names – Each name should have a prefix. A string for a person’s name should be called “szName” or something like that. This helps the development process by reducing the strain on memory.
• Structure – This is very important. Consider having team members write with a certain “grammar.” In other words, have them include a comfortable amount of white space between routines, and capitalize certain letters in a variable.

When you can read each other’s code with proficiency, you save plenty of time. Communication is also key. Have regular meetings and keep an accurate record of everything everyone adds to the product. Within the meetings, don’t just talk about all the Red Bull you chugged while pulling an all-nighter on the development of a module. Talk about the module itself. If you don’t establish some rules of uniformity, you’ll have a herd of stray cats that can’t finish something on time.

Be careful not to make the guideline too specific, though. Coding is still an art, despite all the computer-related stuff you’re doing. It’s best to let at least a minimal amount of personality seep through the seams!